Milt Bearden writes a commentary in The Washington Independent today titled “The Truth Is Out on CIA and Torture“. He is a 30-year veteran in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, served as senior manager for clandestine operations, and is the author, with James Risen, of “The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown With the KGB.”
He writes about something that has bothered me throughout this presidential administration regarding its persistent secrecy with facts, and emphasis on an equivalent of the classic phrase “trust me”. Over my decades of survival, and long before this presidency, I’ve half jokingly recast the phrase “trust me” into actually being a para-phrasing of “I’m about to kill you.” As in “Trust me, I can make this landing.”
Mr. Bearden writes:
Throughout this ugly drama, U.S. leaders have assured the public that the extreme interrogation measures used on detainees have thwarted acts of terrorist and saved thousands of American lives. The trouble with such claims is that professionals who know something of interrogation or intelligence don’t believe them. This is not just because the old hands overwhelmingly believe that torture doesn’t work — it doesn’t — but also because they know that torture creates more terrorists and fosters more acts of terror than it could possibly neutralize.
The administration’s claims of having “saved thousands of Americans” can be dismissed out of hand because credible evidence has never been offered — not even an authoritative leak of any major terrorist operation interdicted based on information gathered from these interrogations in the past seven years. All the public gets is repeated references to Jose Padilla, the Lakawanna Six, the Liberty Seven and the Library Tower operation in Los Angeles. If those slapstick episodes are the true character of the threat, then maybe we’ll be okay after all.
When challenged on the lack of a game-changing example of a derailed operation, administration officials usually say that the need to protect sources and methods prevents revealing just how enhanced interrogation techniques have saved so many thousands of Americans. But it is irresponsible for any administration not to tell a credible story that would convince critics at home and abroad that this torture has served some useful purpose.
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